Strange Slot Simulator
- Board's Eye View
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Strange Slot Simulator from Hobby Japan is a real-time deduction game for 2-5 players. It's designed by Party Taro, with art by Yu Osawa. The premise of the game is that you are trapped in a cursed casino. In order to escape, players are competing to correctly identify the six distinct casino slot machines represented by six constructed decks of slot machine cards. Each numbered 'slot machine' has a slightly different mix of cards and players all have a chart that shows them the mix of cards on each machine.
The game requires careful set up to construct the decks before allocating a randomised letter to each one. Once a deck has been allocated its randomised identifying letter it's essential that the cards don't get accidentally mixed up with any from another deck or you'll need to restart the game. Over four timed four-minute rounds, players take a deck of cards and, behind their screen, play them like a slot machine, revealing three cards, recording those cards, and then putting them back into the deck and shuffling. You repeat this as many times as you can within the four minutes. The idea is that you are trying to use the information from your 'spins' to determine which machine you are playing. So, for example, you might conclude that the slot machine allocated as letter A is machine #5.
You mark a point off on a track every time your spin reveals a bell, and for every five points marked off you can claim the bonus of two extra cards on your next 'spin' (draw five cards instead of three). This can prove to be a clincher in trying to distinguish one 'machine' from another.
At the end of the game, after the four spin rounds plus deduction time, each deck is examined to identify which is which, and the win goes to the player who has correctly identified the most slot machines. Because each round is strictly timed, you should be able to play Strange Slot Simulator in less than 30 minutes, and that's including the relatively fiddly set up.
Hobby Japan have incorporated some variants that let players alter the difficulty level. In the basic game each of the decks has 20 cards but you can play in 'easy' mode with just 15 and just three rounds of 'spins'. Equally you can step up the difficulty level by playing with 25-card slot machine decks. There are further variants involving randomised decks and reserved cards that are revealed only on spending one of your bell-card bonuses but we've so far much preferred the challenge of the standard game; in our plays at Board's Eye View we felt that some of the variants muddy the water too much.
The real-time element of Strange Slot Simulator gives the gameplay a shot of adrenaline that's unusual in a deduction game. Given that you're only ordinarily turning over three cards at a time and then shuffling them back in, there's obviously an element of luck over how helpful your spins will be; it's possible that you could be seeing the same card on repeated occasions. Nevertheless, your spins should give you some indication of which numbered machine you are playing. And if deduction doesn't work for you, you can always fall back on inspired guesswork :-)
